Suzanne Zaccour, Director of Legal Affairs for NAWL testifying before the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women Credit: Suzanne Zaccour
Today I’m having a very important conversation with Suzanne Zaccour, Director of Legal Affairs for the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL).
Zaccour is a feminist author, researcher and public speaker. She recently completed her doctoral degree in law at Oxford University, focusing on partner sexual violence. Her research interests include sexual and domestic violence, family law, animal rights as well as gender and language.
In May 2024, Zaccour testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women as part of its work on coercive control.
Victims of coercive control are overwhelmingly women and they are often disbelieved, punished and re-victimized in family court. These women are also at greater risk of being accused of facilitating parental alienation.
In her role as NAWL Director of Legal Affairs, Zaccour recommended a ban on the use of parental alienation accusations in family law cases.
NAWLs actions also included penning an open letter to ban parental alienation accusations that was sent to Justin Trudeau, Pierre Poilievre, Jagmeet Singh, Yves-François Blanchet and Minister of Justice and Attorney General Arif Virani. Over 250 feminist organizations from across Canada signed that open letter.
In April 2023, Reem Alsalem, United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, released her report titled, Violence Against Women and Girls, Its Causes and Consequences, addressing the link between custody cases, violence against women and violence against children, with a focus on the use of the term “parental alienation” and similar pseudo-concepts.
Here is a link to Alsalem summarizing her findings on the use of parental alienation by legislative and judicial systems that don’t understand violence against women and their children nor the gender bias that women face within these systems.
Additionally, the World Health Organization (WHO) has discounted parental alienation.
Yet, some in the legislative and judicial spheres fear that a complete ban on parental alienation accusations prevents individualized justice.
Zaccour maintains the opposite is true, that parental alienation accusations often interfere with a judge’s ability to consider the history of violence, who was in the role of primary care giver and the children’s wishes.
And, in the worst cases, parental alienation accusations penalize the mother for having experienced family violence, being the primary caregiver and having a close bond with her child or children.
Parental alienation accusations have tremendous impact and harm children. Banning its use may be part of a legal trifecta that includes Bill C-233, Keira’s Law, passed in 2022 requiring federal judges to be educated on intimate partner and family violence.
The law was named for four-year-old Keira Kagan, a victim of femicide at the hands of her biological father, Robin Brown. Brown had a history of abusive behaviour that escalated in the years leading up to Keira’s murder in 2020.
Keira’s Law addresses coercive control and the fact that multiple judges ignored warnings about Brown’s violence.
The second part is the criminalization of coercive control. Bill C-332, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (coercive control of intimate partner) unanimously passed its third reading in Parliament on June 12, 2024 and is in the midst of its second reading in Senate.
And, of course the third part would be passing a federal bill banning the use of parental alienation in custody cases. Parental alienation was raised within the Senate by Senator Busson (September 25, 2024) who asked the Government representative, Senator Gold, to urge Minister of Justice and Attorney General Virani to legislate to stop accusations of parental alienation with the utmost urgency. It’s worth 2 minutes of your time to listen to Senator Busson here.
The following day, NDP MP Laurel Collins stated in Parliament, “Madam Speaker, Canadians from across the country, along with a coalition of over 250 feminists and women's organizations, are urging the government to protect women, children and all survivors of intimate partner violence from accusations of parental alienation in family courts. The petitioners outline that parental alienation is a discredited and unscientific theory used in family court to silence survivors of family violence and often goes against children's wishes. The petitioners would like the government to amend the Divorce Act to make accusations of parental alienation inadmissible in parenting time disputes.”
But will these three bills be enough to keep women and their children safe from violence that depends on a power imbalance and gender inequality not only within the family setting, but also within the legal system?
Hear what Zaccour has to say.
Small Change listeners are encouraged to take action by writing their Member of Parliament, the Minister of Justice and all Canadian party leaders to act now to ban the use of parental alienation in the family court system.
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NAWL is a not-for-profit feminist organization that promotes the equality rights of women through legal education, research and law reform advocacy.
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Parental alienation is gendered violence based on pseudoscience that needs to be banned from family courts